"Fragile Shelter" Is a Cozy Base For Winter Activities

Remember winter? In case you can't , like many of us in Eastern USA and Canada, here is a taste of last winter from Hidemi Nishida Studio. It is a temporary shelter in Sapporo Art Forest, built in January 2011. It is described on the website:

This project is a temporary shelter in the wild winter forest. It leads people to gather, and number of events happened there. Sometimes, local student makes a party at there and sometimes local kindergarten children came there and had a lunch. This is a cozy base for winter activities.

I grew up in Otaru, one of Hokkaido’s oldest cities with a lot of historical architecture. I love to walk through the town, and I saw an impressive scene of small, old, wooden and flat houses built on a very narrow slant. People live in these dilapidated houses for long time and repair the fragile houses themselves.

Nishida says this is the ‘essence of life’ and was inspired to hand-make a shelter from scratch. According to Nishida, today people buy houses from companies or architects, but instead should build their own houses for comfort. ‘In childhood, many people make cardboard houses or something similar,’ Nishida says. ‘My goal is to make something like a cardboard house that reminds us of childhood, with a sense of being one’s own corner of the world."

Inhabitat notes that "the shelter is made from timber and wrapped in plastic sheeting. Although the latter is not the most sustainable material to use in any setting, it is durable and designed for reuse."